HENDRICKS COUNTY, Ind. – A Hendricks County family without clean drinking water is ringing the alarm after the water filtration system they bought turned out to not work and the salesman who sold it to them was a convicted con man.
Kristi and Preston Aspeslet paid almost $4,000 to get clean drinking water their family of seven. They bought the system in September of 2015 from a man named Larry Foster with Vibrant Water LLC. They met him at his booth at the Indiana State Fair.
The problem is, as Kristi said, the system doesn’t work.
“It never worked. Not from day one.”
First, the couple said they waited months to have the system installed. Then, when it didn’t work, they repeatedly tried to reach out to Larry Foster, but no one ever came to make repairs.
The last correspondence the family had with Foster was on January 28th. He sent them a text message that read “we have had some personal problems” and “I will call u Monday I am sure the system just needs adjusting on the head we will get you taken care of”
Foster never called.
The Aspeslet’s then starting researching online and found a mug shot belonging to Larry Foster. Turns out, he had been arrested and charged in 2011 for selling water filtration systems to Hoosiers and never delivering the product.
FOX59 reached out to the Indiana Attorney General’s Office which has already received three complaints this year about Vibrant Water LLC. An agency spokeswoman told FOX59 the office is investigating the company for potential violations of the Deceptive Consumer Sales Act.
A woman named Amanda Foster Ingram, who the Aspeslet’s believe to be the owner of Vibrant Water LLC, sent FOX59 this text message in response to our calls for comment.
“This is ridiculous, flat out outrageous accusations. My company did not set out to ‘scam’ anyone. I was only made aware of the complaint to the Attorney General last week. That issue is separate from this customer issue. The issue you are referring to, is a working filtration system that just needs serviced. Their issue is very minor. The customer contacted me less than a month ago and due to unforeseen issue/ personal reasons, I have not been able to get to them as of yet. The time frame is not reflective of our usual response time. We usually service any issue in a very timely manner. This is also very out of character for our company to have these kind of issues, as we sold and installed hundreds of units to very satisfied customers last year. As far as the communication with this customer I found it very unprofessional that they took to social media to bad mouth our company over an issue as minor as theirs. I planned on getting to them at my earliest convenience. Also, our water filtration and purification systems DO work and they work great. Last year alone, shows we have hundreds of happy, satisfied customers that have great quality water throughout their home. I am very apologetic for this customer and the inconvenience of having an issue with their system and for having to wait for us to come out to service the unit. We have had very few issues with any of our systems, and the issues we have incurred are very minor. The very few problems we do have are usually 1) the ‘head’ (computer part) is not set properly 2) it is not regenerating frequently enough or 3) it is plumbed improperly.
With all that said, I wish you knew the whole truth before just take our company’s name and falsely accuse us. That Is deformation of our character.”
When questioned whether she knew she had a convicted conman working for her company, Amanda Foster Ingram told FOX59’s Aishah Hasnie she was “NOT aware of any ‘conning’ prior to these last few months.”
The Attorney General’s Office is trying to track down Amanda Foster Ingram and Larry Foster.
While Kristi and Preston Aspeslet know they probably won’t get their money back, they just want to get the word out to protect other families.
“The more I read the more I mad I was getting and the more motivated I was getting to help other families not give into this same scam,” said Kristi Aspeslet.
Preston Aspeslet added, “We just want clean water. We don’t care. Just get it to work. Just get it to work.”